


1-900-REDHEAD

by vatrixsta



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:22:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vatrixsta/pseuds/vatrixsta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully receives a very uplifting phone call from Mulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1-900-REDHEAD

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a result of a challenge laid down on the Haven board - to take a fic you wrote long ago, and make it new (aka better)! Behold the result. Thanks to Audrey &amp; Ropo for the beta work.

\--

"I need a massage.  And to never set foot in Texas again.  Not necessarily in that order."

 

Scully kicked her autopsy sneakers aside and flopped into a boneless heap on top of the ugly hotel room bedspread she'd refused to let her suitcase touch earlier that day.

 

"I should also stop talking to myself," she muttered.

 

First, she picked up the hotel phone and ordered room service.  Then, she snagged her cell from the table and speed dialed the number she knew by heart.

 

"Vacuum sales," his raspy voice answered after two rings.

 

"You sound awful," she said without preamble.

 

"That's because I have no one to talk to all day, my throat is getting zero physical therapy."

 

"You should call the Gunmen."

 

"Contrary to popular belief, I find it difficult to sustain an extended conversation with the boys that doesn't involve work, video games, or pornography."

"You know, Mulder, you're only forbidden to discuss one of those topics for the next two weeks."

 

"You know me, Scully - talking leads to doing.  I don't feel like playing video games, and I'm kind of, ah, saving up while you're out of town."

 

One eyebrow arched and she forced her prone body into a sitting position long enough to shrug out of her coat.  Once free of it, she chucked it off the side of the bed and collapsed again.  "Saving up, Mulder?"

 

"You know what I mean," he mumbled.

 

"No.  No, I don't."  She did, actually, but knowing and hearing him say it were separated by miles and miles of fun.

 

"When you've been free throwing on your own for years, then finally you fall into a pick up game, shooting solo just doesn't do it for you anymore."

 

"Wow, you actually managed to make that unsexy."

 

He paused.  "Did you want me to make it sexy, Scully?"

 

She debated whether to go there for about ten seconds.  "I wish you were here," she admitted quietly.

 

"I would be, but my damned personal physician got all bossy, told me I was forbidden to fly again until my breathing was completely under control."

 

"She sounds like a handful."

 

"You have no idea."

 

"This is a nice place," she said, letting the 'unlike the places we normally stay' go unsaid. 

 

"The future's in consulting," Mulder agreed.  "Was there a mint on your pillow?"

 

"Not that nice," she conceded.  "But there's room service.  Possibly of a questionable nature, but they're going to bring it to me while I lie here in a prone position."

 

"You already in bed, Scully?"

 

There it was, that tone she'd called for, shamelessly enhanced by his recent experience at the hand of tobacco beetles.

 

"Mmhhmm," she affirmed.

 

"What're you wearing?"

 

"Socks and a smile?"

 

"Nice try, Scully, but I distinctly remember you telling me room service was on its way.  You are many things, but exhibitionist isn't one of them."

 

Scully stretched back out on the bed, pointing her toes in a delightfully indulgent stretch.  Every muscle in her body ached and tomorrow would prove to be an equally exhausting day.  She didn't even have an interesting anecdote to share with Mulder to show for it; every body she'd cut open today had gone tediously by the book.  Besides, they always talked about work.  Tonight, she wanted to talk about things she felt silly discussing with him face to face.

 

"Can I ask you a personal question, Mulder?"

 

"That sounds like you're trying to get me into trouble."

 

"What's your favorite part of a woman's body?"

 

"You're definitely trying to get me into trouble."

 

She smiled.  "No, there's no wrong answer."

 

A moment of silence passed on his end.  "Besides the obvious?"

 

"Besides them," she agreed.

 

"Your stomach."

 

Scully sat up against the headboard, her hand unconsciously falling to cover the place they were discussing.

 

"Really."

 

"I sense a note of disbelief in your tone."

 

"You'd be familiar with that tone."

 

He made an amused sound of agreement.  "There's something incredibly arousing about a woman's stomach," he continued.  "It holds creation and the possibility for miracle.  It's soft and comforting, the last stop on a man's way to paradise.  It's got a great view no matter which way you're facing, and in your case, it's also the resting place for a small scar that is my proof you're strong enough to live through anything."

 

She cleared her throat.  "You keep saying 'your' - am I to assume your answer would be different with another woman?"

 

"'I am a part of all that I have met.'"

 

"Don't quote Tennyson at me when we're having phone sex."

 

His chuckle was delighted.  "Is that what we're doing?"

 

"You're not usually this obtuse - wait, I take it back."

 

"I can't remember a time when I didn't think of you when any subject came up," he said.  "You are the bar by which all other things are measured.  And I gotta be honest with you, Scully, pretty much everything else comes up wanting with such high standards."

 

"Mulder, take your pants off."

 

"What in the last few minutes possibly gave you the impressions I had my pants on?"

 

Any reply she might have made was interrupted by a knock on the door.

 

"Guess what, Mulder?"

 

"I'm not about to get an audible blow job?"

 

"Give me twenty minutes to eat," she said.  "I'll call you back."

 

"If you're too tired--"

 

"I'm never too tired, Mulder."

 

"I'm so reminding you of that in ten or fifteen years."

 

He hung up without saying goodbye and the waiter who brought her food probably thought she was flirting with him, given she couldn't stop smiling.

 

~

 

It actually took Scully 25 minutes to wolf down the Cobb salad and giant piece of cheesecake she'd ordered.  She was still licking her thumb clean of raspberry sauce when she dialed Mulder's number.

 

"Marty's House of Pancakes, Marty speaking."

 

"Marty, huh?  I was looking for Fox Mulder."

 

"Hang on, I'll get him."  He actually put the phone down for a moment.  "House of Pancakes, Fox Mulder speaking."

 

"Did you take too much of your sleeping medication?"

 

"Define too much?"

 

"Mulder."

 

"I'm going a little crazy without you to bother," he confessed with a sigh.

 

"You don't bother me," she said.  "Much."

 

"Did everything go all right today?"

 

"It was fine.  As fine as two back to back autopsies can be."

 

"Got any leads?"

 

"I don't understand why I was called out here to consult, Mulder.  Those women died of natural causes, albeit several years earlier than they should have."

 

"If there's something there to figure out, you'll figure it out; and if you can't figure it out, you'll beg me to get on a plane and come figure it out with you."

 

She was smiling the way she never would if he could see her.  "I'll beg, huh?"

 

"I love it when you beg, Scully."

 

Suddenly they weren't talking about her consult anymore.

 

"What else do you love, Mulder?"  She set her used plates on the table that brought them in, then relaxed against the bed again.  It was a nice bed, as far as beds that weren't hers went.  As Mulder was fond of noting, she could fall asleep on a subway train in broad daylight, but the strangest thing happened sometimes in unfamiliar beds and she was lucky to get three or four hours strung together.

 

There was the equally undesirable prospect of sleeping without Mulder to contend with.  They'd spent the past few weeks joined at the hip - more so than usual - and she was fast learning she slept best when he was beside her.  Not so strange, really, when she did everything best when he was beside her.

 

He'd been quiet a long time before he answered.

 

"I love you," he said carefully.

 

"That kind of goes without saying, doesn't it?"  In truth, it hadn't, not really, but she'd never been the type to dwell on words of affection in that way.  Scully could count on one hand the number of times her father had told her he loved her, yet Ahab's utter devotion had been the one thing she'd never doubted.

 

That easy surety had always escaped her with the men who'd drifted in and out of her life, and she'd often found herself hungry for declarations when she hadn't been sure herself of what she'd really been feeling.  How very funny it was that Mulder, the one man she'd loved more than any other, could bind her to him with little more than his beloved voice speaking her last name in such intimate tones.

 

"I love… your mouth," he said.

 

"Now we're getting somewhere," she praised.  "What do you love about it?"

 

"It argues with me," he chuckled.  "And it kisses me.  Before we made the beast with two backs--"

 

"Oh, yeah, baby, that's what I like to hear," she said unenthusiastically.

 

"--your mouth and your hands communicated things we wouldn't let ourselves say out loud.  Physically, we're more demonstrative now, but the contact isn't really more meaningful.  I like that about you, about us."

 

Figured; she called for seductive and ended up with sweet.  All in all, Scully thought she'd probably keep him.

 

"I like it, too," she said softly.

 

"I love your feet," he said.  "I love that you jam them into impractical shoes because you hate how short you are.  I love watching you curl your toes once they're free - I swear, Scully, it's like a religious experience, watching your toes curl."

 

"Being freed from uncomfortable footwear isn't the only thing that makes them curl," she felt obliged to point out.

 

"Oh, baby, don't I know it."

 

She giggled at the baby, because she was pretty sure he wasn't kidding with it.

 

"Keep going," she encouraged.  Just the sound of his voice did things dangerously close to toe curling.

 

"I love your shoulders, and your fingertips -- I already mentioned your stomach, right?"

 

"You did, rather eloquently, even."

 

"I love to kiss that spot on the front of your hip - you know which one I mean?"

 

Scully's hand moved down her torso until her fingers covered the very spot.

 

"Yeah," she said.

 

"Everything is great there -- your skin is soft, your body starts tensing because you're waiting to see where else I'm going to go, and Scully, God, I can smell you so well… I always know when I'm on the right track from that spot."

 

She took a deep breath and started making little circles with her thumb against the fabric of her pants.

 

"You always do a pretty good job of knowing when you're on the right track, regardless of where you are."

 

"Are you touching yourself, Scully?  And before you answer, know that an affirmative will fulfill one of my top five fantasies."

 

"What are the others?" she laughed.

 

"We'd need saran wrap and a can of silly string for one of 'em."

 

Scully laughed harder.  "I don't know if you're joking or not."

 

"Does that worry you?"

 

"It should, shouldn't it?"

 

"You never answered me."

 

Like a dog with a bone.  A very, very sexy dog.  And did that make her a bone?

 

"Yes, Mulder, I'm touching myself.  Though I'm still fully clothed."

 

"Let's remedy that.  Take something off."

 

As she was contemplating what to divest herself of first, the call waiting went off on her cell phone.

 

"Shit," she muttered.

 

"Okay, don't take something off," he deadpanned.

 

"I have another call -- damn it, at this hour, it's got to be important."

 

"I'll keep," he assured her.

 

She thumbed over the call, frowning.  "Scully."

 

And then she frowned harder.

 

~

 

Two hours later, Scully once again trudged down the long hall toward her room.  It was a twisted fact of life that she never got the room closest to the elevator, even when Mulder sometimes did.

 

When her phone rang, she didn't even check the caller I.D. before she answered.  "Scully."

 

"Sorry, wrong number, I thought this was '1-900-REDHEAD.'"

 

"It is," she said hastily.  "We just can't answer the phone that way, you never know when one of those pesky law enforcement officers might be listening."

 

"Bastards, always trying to keep a girl from making an honest living." 

 

"What can I do for you, Handsome?"  She tried a coquettish tone, then, wincing, vowed never to use it again.

 

He chuckled.  "Well, Red, I thought I could tell you a fantasy of mine, and then see if you could make it come true."

 

"That sounds good," she whispered.  In fact, it sounded better than good -- after driving back down to the morgue because an over-eager town sheriff thought he'd lost her autopsy notes, only to discover them, forty-five minutes later, on his own desk, every ounce of professional patience had been sapped from Scully's body, and she was ready for the kind of distraction only Mulder seemed capable of providing.

 

"So it starts as you're coming home from a long day at work, being totally unappreciated for your brilliance in a traditionally male dominated field."

 

She smiled, then caught sight of her door, and, sighing, realized her key was somewhere in the labyrinthine shoulder bag she'd started carrying when she was solely doing morgue work.  Squatting on the ground, she began pawing through its contents.  Breath mints, tampon, badge, home keys, office keys, something sticky Mulder had probably slipped in there before she left - God, where was the damned room key?

 

"You're tired and cranky and I take you totally by surprise.  I go straight for your clothes, I don't even kiss you first, I can't, because I've been thinking about your skin all fucking day and I hope you've been thinking about me, too, because I don't think I could bear to take my time yet, I just need to have you as fast and as hard as possible."

 

Card key!  How wonderful and frustrating, all at the same time.

 

"I can't express to you how good that sounds," she muttered.

 

"It could have been all yours, Scully, if only you hadn't grounded me in D.C."

 

Just the thought made her want to cry.  She slid the key card home and shouldered open her door.

 

"Mulder, I wish you hadn't listened to me."

 

Ten seconds of silence went by.

 

"Hey, Scully?"

 

The phone was echoing weirdly in her ear and she held it away from her head.  "What?"

 

Someone else slammed her door closed, and Mulder's body was suddenly pinning hers against it.  Both their phones got lost somewhere.  When he answered her, his lips were nearly brushing hers.

 

"When was the last time I listened to you?"

\--end-- 


End file.
